PPG deal for AkzoNobel's paint business could have Sherwin-Williams seeing red

Today's big deal by PPG Industries to buy AkzoNobel's Strongsville-based coatings business for $1.05 billion “will strengthen PPG's challenge to Sherwin-Williams,” according to this analysis by Reuters.

The news service says Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams Co. has about 36% of the U.S. decorative paints market, compared with PPG's 15% and AkzoNobel's 13%, according to analysts.

AkzoNobel's North American business, which sells the Glidden paint brand in the United States through retail chains including Wal-Mart Stores and Home Depot, “has long been a drag on performance because it lacked the scale to compete with Sherwin-Williams and only recently became profitable,” Reuters reports.

AkzoNobel has about 1,000 employees in Northeast Ohio, mostly in Strongsville but also at manufacturing and distribution facilities in Huron.

So says Forbes.com based on Zillow.com's most recent analysis of the best markets for home buyers and sellers.

“Conditions in Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic metros including Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Baltimore offered buyers the most leverage over sellers when negotiating a home sale,” according to Forbes.com. “The list of metros where sellers largely have the upper hand is dominated by the West and Southwest, including San Francisco, Sacramento, Las Vegas and Phoenix.”

Zillow analyzed data on actual sales prices compared to asking prices, the number of days listings spent on Zillow and the percentage of homes on the market with a price cut. It then ranked the 30 largest metro areas in the country to determine whether buyers or sellers have more negotiating power in a given market. In this analysis, “a sellers' market is not necessarily one where home values are rising, but rather one in which homes are on the market for a shorter time, price cuts occur less frequently and homes are sold at prices very close to (or greater than) their last listing price,” according to Forbes.com.

In buyers' markets, homes for sale stay on the market longer, price cuts occur more frequently and homes are sold for less relative to their listing price, giving buyers more negotiating power.

If it can happen in Michigan, it can happen anywhere.

That's the theme of this Bloomberg analysis of the passage of a right-to-work measure in Michigan, which says the “next logical targets” for a right-to-work push are “Michigan's rust-belt neighbors that also have Republican governors and legislatures — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Right-to-work forces are on the move even if lawmakers in those states express reluctance, as Michigan Gov. Rich Snyder once did.”

Michigan offers a template for how a labor bulwark can be toppled.

“The law giving workers the right to opt out of paying union dues flew through the lame-duck legislature in one week, with limited debate and without considering it in committee,” Bloomberg notes. (Gov. Snyder said right-to-work was put into play by labor's failure to win a Nov. 6 ballot measure enshrining collective bargaining in the state's constitution.)

“This is a manual for how to do it for Ohio and Pennsylvania to study and replicate,” says Sean McAlinden, a former UAW member who is now a labor economist for the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

As you might imagine, companies that make gift boxes are struggling because as more shopping moves online, “fewer people need lightweight boxes from retailers to wrap their gifts,” the newspaper notes. (And, of course, gift cards require no box at all, even though small "pillow" boxes can be bought to conceal them). Plus, retailers aren't eager to give away lots of boxes, either, because they aren't cheap, ranging from 20 cents apiece for a basic shirt box to $2 for those bestowed by the fanciest boutiques.

Even so, “some gift-box makers say demand is up modestly from last year,” The Journal reports. Among them is Boxit Corp. of Cleveland,

Americans "must feel more confident this year than last year," says Joel Zaas, president of Boxit. He says Boxit also is selling more gift boxes to online retailers.

Ken Jennings, the world's most famous Jeopardy! champion, talks with BusinessWeek.com and offers a list of five novels with strong business themes, including one set in Cleveland.

“Of all the great children's books about entrepreneurship and marketing — well, actually, this might be the only one. Two Cleveland sixth-graders realize that they can undercut Big Dentifrice by mixing up baking-soda toothpaste in their basement. In the end, their success gets a bit ahead of them, just as it was with so many of the real-life tech billionaires they probably inspired.”

His other selections all are great books: “Bartleby the Scrivener,” by Herman Melville; “Then We Came to the End,” by Joshua Ferris; “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” by Tom Wolfe; and “The Last Tycoon,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.